


The Time and in Between

by anr



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-09
Updated: 2010-06-09
Packaged: 2017-11-04 11:25:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first day of summer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Time and in Between

**Author's Note:**

> _Rule Fifty-One_ (7x24)
> 
> Spanish translations, and Gibbs' rules, in mouseover.

The hotel room is cheap, dirt-clean, with faded curtains that hang limply in the heat. A small table, one chair. Toilet and sink, no shower or bath. The walls are a mustardy-cream colour, the bible tattered. He wouldn't trust the bed sheets on a dare (not alone, anyway).

Street sounds drift into the room; smells of food and gasoline and livestock and people following. His stomach growls -- he should have bought something to eat before -- and he settles for a third of his bottle of his water, screwing the cap back on, tight.

Standing near the foot of the bed, near the centre of the room, he thinks, _fuck the rules_. It doesn't help.

  


* * *

  


No such thing as a 'do not disturb' sign, not here. He wedges the lone chair under the door handle and twitches the curtains closed against the setting sun. He stands in the corner of the room, watching a sliver of humanity flutter between wooden sill and worn fabric, the chaired door to his right.

He doesn't put the safety back on his gun.

  


* * *

  


He doesn't think.

(He thinks, _home_.)

  


* * *

  


He sits for awhile, back against the wall, legs bent, arms draped around his knees. He stands. Sits. He doesn't pace, doesn't walk the corners of the room, doesn't trust his own shadow.

Outside, the sun sinks below the buildings, sinks below the horizon.

  


* * *

  


The bottoms of his shoes are dirty, grit like sand collecting on the threadbare rug that pretends to be carpet. He touches them -- feels the grains cling and fall from his fingertips -- and remembers another country, another summer just beginning. It feels like forever ago. It feels like yesterday.

He's not sure he can get on another cargo plane. Not alone. Not now. Not again.

  


* * *

  


Footsteps in the hallway outside his room.

He stands beside the door, gun in hand, ready, listening.

The footsteps stop a couple of paces away, two sets, one heavier than the other. There's a murmur of conversation, whispers maybe. His breathing slows.

Then: a laugh, soft and feminine and, _pare eso , jose_, and another laugh, this one masculine and teasing and, _hágame_ , and he knows those tones, knows what sort of actions generally come first and what can be expected to come next.

He listens to them disappear into the room down and opposite from his.

He doesn't move.

  


* * *

  


He drinks another third of his water.

  


* * *

  


He has two cell phones, the one Vance gave him and the one he bought for a handful of dollar bills from some street corner kid a few hours ago. He digs out the kid's and opens the back, replacing the sim card with one he'd brought with him from a convenience store in the States. The kid's sim he crushes under his boot heel until it cracks.

He considers and reconsiders whether or not to call. He knows he shouldn't. He wants to but he's smarter than that.

(No he's not.)

He texts: _i'm sorry i wasn't there_. and hits send.

The reply is quick, a shock, like she was waiting for him, anonymous number and all: _can i call you?_

His heart pounds: _no._

He turns off the phone and drops it onto the rug. Almost raises his foot to crush it.

Almost.

  


* * *

  


He watches the street.

  


* * *

  


Midnight.

(It's oh-one-hundred.)

He thinks, _hello summer_.

  


* * *

  


He turns the phone back on and watches the screen flash, _3 messages_.

First: _are you okay?_

Then: _rule 4?_

And: _do you need me?_

His fingers do not shake. He won't let them. He texts again: _i'm sorry i wasn't there._

Her response time is less of a shock when he's expecting it: _rule 6._

 _no_ , he sends back. _rule 8._

 _rule 8_ , she replies. _i missed you there._

  


* * *

  


Someone's running water somewhere. The room above him, maybe. He listens to the pipes sound, his hands in fists on his thighs.

  


* * *

  


He types out: _i'm sorry i wasn't there and i know you think i don't want you to be this and that's not it it's not it's that i worry too much is finally changing after too long of not and i don't want you to ever leave and i don't want you to wake up one day and realise this life you've chosen is not the one you needed and i do need you i do._

Too much. Too _selfish_. He clears the screen and tries again.

_this reminds me of a movie._

(Undrugged, she's always been the braver one.)

He turns off the phone again.

  


* * *

  


He touches the not-sand from his shoes again and wonders if this is it, if this is everything now, if this summer will end the same as the last. Sun and sand and foreign languages, _oh my_. He's tired. He doesn't dare sleep.

  


* * *

  


He drinks his last third, and waits for the sun to rise.

  


* * *

  


The street sounds swell gradually, the night giving way. The hotel wakes slower.

He turns on the phone for the last time, _1 message_.

_come home._

This time, he does crush it.

  


* * *

  


He checks his gun, checks Franks'. When he moves from his corner, the room's dimensions flicker in the morning light slipping through the curtains. He avoids his shadow still.

  


* * *

  


In the bathroom, he washes the blood from his hands.

  


* * *

  


He leaves his room, adjusting his sunglasses as he heads downstairs, rules forty-five and eleven battling unevenly in his thoughts still. Stay or go. Go or stay.

( _i'm sorry i wasn't there and i do need you i do_ )

He should have sent the text.

  


* * *

  


He steps out into the summer's morning sun.

  


* * *

The End

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGINAL URL: <http://anr.livejournal.com/403868.html>


End file.
